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Lucky Bamboo

Monday, 26 January 2009

Happy Australia Day (though sincere apologies to the indigenous community)! And Happy Chinese New Year! These 2 celebrations coincidentally fall on the same day this year... a remarkable coincidence :-)

I had a lovely surprise today when Xin came over... She bought a beautiful lucky bamboo plant as a house warming present! And she educated me on the plant itself! I'm very excited... Apparently in Chinese lucky bamboo is called Ji Ji zhu. Ji means both segment and luck (the bamboo grows in segments and the more segments you have the luckier the plant is!). Every aspect of the lucky bamboo is significant... The 5 aspects of earth, water, wood, fire and metal are represented by the rocks and water in the pot, the bamboo and the colourful adornment around the neck... even the number of stalks has a meaning. I have yet to find out what 12 stalks mean but I know it's a 'Yin' or feminine number. The plant itself is actually native to Africa and is not actually a bamboo at all but was popularised in China through the principles of Feng Shui.

According to the principles of Feng Shui it's best to place it in a wealth area of the home, such as the far left corner of a desk... Or in a sharp corner to shield from "secret arrows" or to activate yang energy wherever there is stagnant chi or in the east/southeast which is the wood section of the home... I don't actually know where there is stagnant chi... Or where there are secret arrows, so I've placed the plant on the top left corner of the desk (which happens to be in the most south-eastern room in the house). Fingers crossed for a bountiful year!

She also bought a stapleless stapler - something I hadn't seen before - which is very environmentally friendly! It's a fact that if every office worker used 1 less staple per day for a year we would save 120 million tonnes of steel. The hole it makes is very cute and it makes the document much easier to shred later! It's especially good for klutzes such as myself who shouldn't be trusted around sharp pointy metal objects! It would be fantastic if we could make these out of recaptured waste!

Anyway... My journey through the world of Feng Shui and the Chinese New Year websites must now cease... The predictions for 2009 are causing me to unnecessarily worry for no good reason! (I know we create our own destiny but I can't help but feel the impending doom of the predictions!)

Thanks for the beautiful gifts Xin! Environmentally friendly, practical, beautiful and lucky! What more could you ask for? :-)

Labels: feng shui, lucky bamboo

posted by genloz at 12:13 PM 1 Comments